Spiritual Soul Instructions and Observation of the World

Schmidt Number: S-0759

On-line since: 31st March, 2014

Course IV - Lecture I

Theosophy and Spiritism

GA 52

Berlin
February 1st, 1904

The questions of the origin and goal of the human soul have
existed always and at all times. One counts these questions among the religious,
theological or theosophical ones. But in ancient times the science of the everyday
life went hand in hand with the investigation of the spiritual world. There
were sages at that time who knew not only the facts and laws of the external
nature and the science of the material life, but also the science of the spiritual
life. One could also rely on those who knew the natural phenomena and physical
laws if one wanted to get information about the laws of the spiritual life.
At that time no one-sidedness existed with the spiritual leaders. Almost everybody
of them had an overview of the whole area of knowledge, and probably nobody
dared to deliver an authoritative judgment in any scientific question, we say,
for example, in the field of zoology, if he did not know the higher questions
of the spiritual life at the same time.

Since the 16th century this has
changed. There the religious problems and the generally accepted science opposed
each other. This contrast between faith and knowledge, between religion and
knowledge appeared the sharpest in the 19th century. At that time the spiritual
life had received another physiognomy. Great naturalists postpone the dawning
of the scientific age to the thirties years of the 19th century. One has pointed
rightly to this age as one of the most epoch-making of humankind. One has pointed
with pride to performances of the natural sciences with regard to the control
of the physical laws and the knowledge of the physical processes in the 19th
century. And one has said rightly that all the preceding millennia together
have not performed so much in this field as the 19th century.

However, a concomitant of this big,
immense upturn is the lack of spiritual life. The harmony which existed in former
times between both sides of knowledge got lost. Today the harmony between the
science which limits itself to external facts in the material world and the
science which deals with the facts of the soul does no longer exist. It is something
peculiar that just the science of the 19th century became absolutely powerless
concerning the big questions of existence, concerning the questions of the soul-life
and spiritual life. It is strange that just in our time the big mass can no
longer be led by the leaders of science to the higher humanities. You get no
explanation from those who investigate nature if you ask them: what about the
problems of the soul? What about the determination of the human being? —
One has called our age in which the things are in such a way the materialistic
age. Our otherwise so perfect science limits itself to natural science, as far
as it is to be carried out with the external senses, as far as it is to be calculated
or to be explored by combination of external sense-perception. The knowledge
of nature and the knowledge of the soul-life do no longer go hand in hand.

Consider psychology, the science
of the soul of our time. It is, as if it is attacked by a big incapacity. Go
from university to university, from chair to chair: what you hear with regard
of the life of soul and mind is absolutely powerless in the face of the most
urgent questions of our existence. It is typical that the so-called soul researchers
have a catchword which is as characteristic as only a catchword can be. Since
Friedrich Albert Lange, the historian of materialism, the catchword of “the
science of the soul without soul” has become setting the tone. This catchword
characterises the standpoint of psychology in the second half of the 19th century
more or less, and expresses that the human soul and its qualities are nothing
else than the external expression of the mechanical functioning of the sensuous
natural forces in our organism. As well as the clock consists of gear wheels
and moves the hands with the help of the gear wheels, the movement of the hands
is nothing else than the result of purely mechanical processes, our soul-life
with its wishes, desires, ideas, concepts should also be nothing else than the
result of physical processes, comparable to the forward movement of the hands
in the clock; it should have its cause in nothing else than in the gears which
move in our brain and which were made clear to us by science in such an epoch-making
way. Nothing of the brain physiology should be criticised; everything remains
completely and can be acknowledged by nobody more than by me. But even if we
can say that the clock is a mechanical engine and that which it performs is
a result of the mechanical gears, we must not forget that in the production
of the clock a watchmaker was active. “Watch without watchmaker”
is an impossible catchword just as “science of the soul without soul.”
This is not a catchword, but it is something that marks the whole way of research,
of the thinking and the attitude of the 19th century which observes the soul
eliminating the mind and explains it only as a mechanism. Explanation and attitude
correspond to this catchword. Hence, it is also no miracle, if those who thirst
from the deepest need of heart and soul for the answer of the questions: where
does the human being originate from? Where does he go? Which is the determination
of our soul? — If those feel bored stiff of that which is presented as
a scientific teaching of the soul by such people who should have a teaching
of the soul. In the textbooks about the soul one finds something entirely different
from a teaching of the soul.

One is not surprised if these try
to satisfy their need of spiritual knowledge non-scientifically just since the
official science is so powerless in the face of these questions, and if this
science of soul and mind positions itself apart from the modern science of materialism
which makes science deaf and dumb; deaf toward the external teaching, dumb if
it should speak about the soul. Our official science is powerless in the face
of the soul questions, even if it has the good will. That is why, where in science
the quarrel broke out between materialism and spiritualism as for example between
Wagner and Vogt, it did not end at all to
the disadvantage of materialism. Everything that the materialistic researcher
replied to the spiritualist is completely maintained, while that which the spiritualist
brought forward was quite untenable in the light of strict research. We see
that even if the scholars had the good will to deepen the question about the
human soul in terms of Weber’s real spiritual science
it has turned out helpless. Hence, the words “psychology without soul”
is also no mere catchword, because science really lost the concept of the soul.
If you want to ask the most famous psychologists’ advice, you find the
same as with the physiologist Wagner. The psychologists have nothing to say
because they do not have an idea of the soul. They have put about not only the
catchword “science of the soul without soul,” but they have completely
lost sight of the being of the soul.
This fact must be appreciated completely if one wants to understand the development
of the spiritistic currents. Since the origin and development of the materialistic
epoch, which was enthusiastically welcomed by the ones which was combated by
the others on the liveliest, a counter-current exists which one calls the spiritualistic
or spiritistic movement. Both belong together, as well as South Pole and North
Pole of a magnet belong together necessarily. Because the scientific researchers
and leaders could not say anything about the soul, one turned to other researchers
to hear something about the soul. Because the question of the soul was so unstoppable,
all objections which were done against spiritism fell on deaf ears.

Today we want to examine how we
have to behave from the theosophical standpoint to the enthusiastic welcomers
and to the objections of the opponents of spiritism. I presuppose that spiritism
is a necessary phenomenon. We have to realise first if we study such a question
that it does not concern an accidental, but a necessary phenomenon; recognisable
as necessary simply from its course. We completely ignore at first that dilettantes
have mainly occupied themselves with spiritism and its phenomena. Let us look
at something different, namely at the fact that among the scholars researchers
of the best reputation and significance were who sympathised with spiritism.
Because this is the case, allow me to refrain for the moment from the spiritualistic
phenomena, and to make the development of spiritism to a question of persons
which refers to those at first who have occupied themselves with spiritism and
certainly possess a notable judgment in spiritistic questions; they have exerted
a deep influence also in the fields of natural science at the same time. These
are scholars who could not be content just as many other people with the concepts
of a “psychology without soul” which their professional colleagues
gave them; these are scholars who performed much more in our modern science
than the really materialistic researchers.

There we may probably put the question:
is it not of quite particular significance if a researcher of indubitable reputation,
like the great English chemist Crookes, did completely commit to spiritism?
Crookes, who has the biggest merits investigating the chemical
basic laws, the chemical constitution of our elements who did not only stand
the test in scientific fields, but also performed the best in practical fields
who takes a position in science like few other people — this man concerned
himself with spiritistic experiments. One believed to argue against him that
he did not exactly approach his observations. However, this objection is of
secondary significance, it only shifts the point of question. Because it does
not depend on that whether Crookes experimented exactly, but whether Crookes,
the great chemist, knew to which extent nature follows the sensuous laws, to
which extent these reach, and whether they obstruct a psychology based on spiritualistic
experiments; whether the highest possible scientific efficiency is not an obstacle
for a man achieving scientific knowledge in the fields of spiritism. It depends
on that: can Crookes be on one side the exact scientific researcher for us if
we believe on the other side that we have to doubt his researches in spiritual
fields? This is almost in such a way, as if we constructed a double Crookes,
a Morning- and an Afternoon-Crookes to us. In the morning, if he concerns himself
with his chemistry, he has a healthy intellect; in the afternoon, if he devotes
himself to the investigation of spiritistic experiments, he is crazy. The fact
that this is absurd makes sense immediately, however, is not admitted by the
accepted science.

Another naturalist is the English
scholar Wallace, the founder of the theory of evolution. Darwin
and he found — independently of each other — the great thought of
this theory, Darwinism. If one studies his works, one finds that he has dealt
with the concerning question even more splendidly than Darwin himself. His merit
in these fields is not denied. Because he stood up spoken and written for the
reality of spiritistic phenomena later, one also split him, so to speak, in
two parts. He fights on one side for his scientific view and on the other side
for his psychology which is similar to that of Crookes. Everywhere you can find
that he is shown as a poor lost because he occupied himself with spiritism and
supported it. Dwarf-like intellects simply rebel against the way of thinking
and the attitude of these great men.

The fact that also a researcher
of spiritism can be on the high level of a naturalist, like the mentioned researchers,
caused me to make the matter a question of persons at first.

Indeed, the 19th century has the
advantage over all former centuries that these exceptionally important questions
are treated as scientific questions. These researchers do not at all regard
it as impossible to expand the scientific research also to this area. Therefore,
it may be also quite right to refer to them as authorities; because it does
not depend on the question whether anybody observed exactly or inexactly, but
merely whether they regard it as possible or impossible. The exactness or inaccuracy
of an experiment can be ascertained later. What was made wrong can be corrected
later under other conditions. This with regard to this kind of psychology while
it depends only on the question: can one disprove this kind of psychology scientifically?

We do not register a scientific
psychology, and the weakest and most unimportant what has been written by the
scholars in the course of the 19th century is written against spiritism. Some
opponents of my view may sit here; they must admit one matter with unbiased
judgment: even if the writings should be right which are directed against spiritism,
they all are trivial and unscientific; one may also be right if one states brainless
stuff.

After we have recognised the spiritistic
movement as a cultural-historical necessity this way, let us look a little at
the differences which exist between the spiritistic movement and other attempts
of investigating the soul facts.

You know that there is a theosophical
current, a theosophical movement since 1875, which — just as spiritism
since forty years — endeavours to confirm the truth that the material
existence is not the only one, but that a higher existence is in the world that
there are spiritual facts and beings which are not to be reached and investigated
using the outer senses. Just as spiritism dealt with the question of the existence
of a spiritual world according to its methods, theosophy also deals with these
higher worlds. It is a simple historical fact that the founders of the theosophical
movement stood in the spiritistic movement before they realised that they had
to work in theosophical sense. Helena Petrowna Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott,
the great emissaries of the Theosophical Society, went out from the spiritistic
movement, and one even called the theosophical association, which they established
at first, a society of dissatisfied spiritists. They sought for nothing but
truth in the spiritual fields, after they had gained the knowledge that the
theosophical movement is right. They only changed the method of investigation,
and we want now to talk about the reason why they changed it.

It is the task of all spiritists
and of all religious movements to produce evidence that there is a higher spiritual
life; that in the human being something spiritual lives that the human being
has a spiritual nature in himself that his life between birth and death is only
a part of the whole human life, and that the human being is something else beside
his physical being. The spiritual researchers endeavour to produce evidence
of that. It is that which they have in common. They strive collectively for
that, and in this goal they will also meet to constitute a necessary contrast
to the materialistic current. One can achieve truth not on separate ways, but
only in full unity, in harmonious striving. Not only the common goal but also
the knowledge of the common origin of these two movements may contribute to
this unity. It was a common site of origin from which spiritistic movements
as well as theosophy took their starting point. So not only the goal, but also
the origin is the same. Those people know this who are able to look a little
deeper into the internal driving forces of the spiritual movement. What we see
externally, what of the spiritual movement is immediately open before our external
eyes happens in the world of effects, not in the world of causes. The spiritual
researcher knows that the causes of something that happens before your senses
are found in much higher spiritual worlds. We grope in the dark if we walk in
the sensuous world up and down, and have no idea what takes place behind the
scenery where higher spiritual powers pull the strings of that which takes place
before our sensory eyes. Thus the spiritual researcher also recognises that
spiritistic and theosophical movements have a common origin.

Somebody who pursues the development
of humankind with open spiritual eye knows that there is a development also
within the spiritual life of humankind like within the physical nature. As well
as there are within the physical nature beings which grope in the dark, and
others which grope in the dark and also hear et cetera, there are in the spiritual
life all gradations between the undeveloped soul of a savage and the genius
soul of Goethe or Newton. We see which immense differences exist in the gradation
of the development of senses as well as in the scale of mental development.
There are highly developed beings among humankind, and those who have found
them are able to give evidence of them. These great beings are the leaders of
the spiritual development. They are not only — as Schopenhauer said —
an ideal brotherhood which joins the hands together through times, but a real
community of beings which work together. The theosophist knows about its existence
and calls it the great brotherhood of the so-called adepts. Who believes honestly
in a development must believe in this possibility; who has, however, experience
of it can give evidence that there are such beings.

When around the middle of the 19th
century the materialistic turning point took place when the higher beings saw
that a materialistic high tide must come up, they caused the counter-pole. They
did not criticise this materialistic movement at any moment. They knew that
the modern technology would thereby take an immense upward trend, and this was
a necessity. That is why the materialistic movement should not be combated.
Only with regard to the soul question a counter-pole had to be created, a spiritual
current, a spiritual wave against the material one in humankind. This spiritual
wave expresses itself at first in the appearance of spiritistic phenomena. It
should be shown to the human beings that there is something else than what natural
science can seize with its means. Those brothers who knew how to interpret the
signs of the time who were always the leaders of humankind sent the spiritistic
tidal wave about humankind. They are working for centuries. Unknown, misjudged,
they will come to the fore in single individualities working extensively for
humankind. As long as the mass of humankind could turn to the scientific leaders,
as long as it could receive information about the burning soul questions, however,
those older brothers could lead the spiritual humankind in concealed mysteries.
Then they sent their scouts into the world on ways which only the so-called
occultist knows. Somebody who really studies history encounters such spiritual
influence which he does not know how to explain if he is only a materialistic
researcher which become clear to him, however, if he turns to the right spiritual
researchers.

The situation changed in the 19th
century. Just because the scientific leaders failed, it was necessary that obvious
proofs of the existence of a spiritual world were delivered. Now, however, it
became apparent that the three decades of the spiritistic movement from 1840
to 1870 caused quite different interests at first as one had intended. Do not
argue that the wise leaders can also be mistaken, because they would have had
to foresee this otherwise. This is a matter which must be discussed in other
way. It turned out at first that the interests connected with the spiritistic
phenomena were not intended. One wanted to obviously show the fact that there
is still a purely spiritual life beside the physical one. However, only interests
of overly human, personal nature were nourished at that time. It was the contact
with the dead, which was sought above all. But this was not at all what the
emissaries should bring to humankind. The purpose of these phenomena was not
to satisfy human curiosity, even if of nice and noble kind. Humankind should
get knowledge, insights which should lead it — using them correctly —
to itself, to a higher, spiritual life. Unfortunately, one sought for too much
curiosity, and investigated the spiritual world in a way which cannot lead to
the real purification of humankind. This is the reason why the Theosophical
Society was then founded.

Let me make a reference shortly
what it concerns here. The human being is not created by purely natural forces.
What constitutes the human nature what forms the cover of the soul-life and
spiritual life is not created by means of physical strength. Wisdom created
the world. Wisdom also created every human being. I presuppose this here; it
could be the task of a particular lecture to prove it to you. That is why I
only make an outline today.

You know that no clock comes into
being by means of mere natural forces, but that human astuteness is necessary
to produce the necessary combinations. Those are right who say: if we investigate
the organism of the living body, we find no God, no divine creativity, but only
natural forces. They do not find the spiritual, creative forces. Already if
you think about that a little bit, you can get it clear to your mind. Even if
you study a clock, you can explain it quite mechanically, and, in the end, you
are forced to raise the question about the wisdom, about the human reason and
about the watchmaker who made it, and you cannot find him in the clock, too.
One sees from it: the question is put wrongly. The comparison of the human organism
with a clock absolutely holds good, but it must be properly applied. It is correct
if one says: as little as a clock and its clockwork can originate without the
mental influence of a watchmaker as little as the human soul came into being
without the spiritual influence of its creator — this human soul with
the present consciousness, as we know it, which teaches us of the environment,
which calculates, deduces, and informs us about our moral life. Imagine what
was necessary — I have to talk figuratively — to create the basis
for this peak of the organic life, for the human mind within this human organic
development.

It is easy to imagine that these
legitimate creators of the organism could have built only up to one of the lower
steps that they would never have been able to create this intricate human organism
which was to be used for the human soul as a useful tool. They had to reach
a peak of their capacity. We go back to those times which preceded the development
of the human soul in which the development did not yet get to a human peak.
Then we find that these beings are built up wisdom-filled, and it becomes clear
to us at the same time that the forces which created these beings can be seen
by us human beings just as little as the watchmaker of the clock can be seen.
The human being knows about the spiritual powers, forces and beings which carefully
prepared this in which his soul lives as little as the mechanical clockwork
in the clock knows about the mental activity of the watchmaker.

Spiritual forces worked on the construction
of our organism and are still working in us. Those forces which formed our organism
so that it is able to breathe, to send blood through the veins, to digest that
it concentrates substances and forces in the brain and makes the brain the suitable
tool of the soul, until the human soul could come into being — still today
these soul forces are at work. But as little as gravitation, as magnetism can
be seen, as little we see the forces which manifest themselves as our desires,
passions, wishes and impulses, just as little we can recognise the creative
forces which were effective with the construction of the organism. Imagine the
human being would not yet be at the height where he has a clear consciousness.
Imagine him being transported in that time when these forces of consciousness
had not yet taken possession of his organism.

Before our highly developed brain
could be built in the course of world evolution, other forms of the brain developed
which are even today always in us, covered and controlled by the highly developed
perfect brain of the human being of our time. In an certain way — unaware
to the human being — the spiritual creators of the world built up the
nature of desires and impulses of the human being; that nature which the human
being has with the animals in common to produce the tool of the soul as their
peak. Still today these spiritual beings which built up us are active; they
are beside us, in us, and are as real as this lamp is real here in the physical
world. We move in our physical world and know about the things of the world
because we have attained a clear consciousness. Round us many beings live which
fell behind on former levels of existence. Exactly the same way as the human
beings advanced, certain beings fell behind and constitute a spiritual world
for themselves. But also for them the development will not come to a standstill.
Just as our consciousness developed to our height and clearness, their development
also advances. One cannot deny further advancement to higher and higher levels
to our consciousness. However, if the human being has developed not only up
to this clear consciousness, but to an even higher view, then we recognise the
spiritual worlds again which always surround us.

You can receive knowledge from the
spiritual world surrounding us in double way. The first way is that we investigate
the condition of the human being after his clear consciousness has been eliminated.
This clear consciousness is like a light which outshines the spiritual influence
which is round us. We do not see it because our consciousness outshines it.
If we eliminate our consciousness, however, we approach the spiritual beings
who were our creators before we had the clear consciousness. Then we attain
the knowledge that the development does not advance straight ahead, but it ascends
and descends in circles. While we eliminate our clear consciousness, we move
as it were back to former stadia of our development where we were more spiritual,
whereas we stand with our consciousness above that sphere today. We really come
from a spiritual world, and this spiritual world has done in advance, so to
speak, what can be the flat, the home of the soul in the physical world. We
approach the divine being in certain respect if we lower the level a little
which we have reached. This is the way spiritism has gone.

The other way is the way of the
modern spiritual science, of theosophy. Theosophy tries to investigate the spiritual
world not through elimination of the consciousness, but through higher development
of the consciousness. The ideal of the theosophist is to attain knowledge about
the spiritual world surrounding us with perfect continuity, with maintenance
of his clear consciousness. This is the difference between the theosophical
student and the spiritistic medium. The medium delivers information of the spiritual
world, but it is only a tool. It is the organ through which the spiritual world
speaks. The theosophical researcher tries to lift his clear consciousness to
those heights where he perceives this spiritual world again. The theosophical
researcher considers it as an restriction of the human independence, as an obstruction
of the human right of self-determination if he should give up that level of
clear consciousness which he has once reached in the course of development and
should transport himself back to the state which he has already gone through
in former phases of his development.

The truth which we receive in a
state of the lowered consciousness may be quite untouchable, no one may doubt
the correctness of the results of spiritistic experiments, however, the question
whether the method of research is right or permissible is not thereby touched.
It particularly depends on it whether it corresponds to the laws of development
and the intentions of the cosmic powers if steps are done again backward which
nature has already done forward. Not without reason steps are done in nature,
and, hence, the human being should also not transport himself back to phases
of development which nature has already overcome with him. We do not want to
investigate truth because of curiosity, not on wrong, underhand ways, but merely
on the way about which the lofty cosmic powers have instructed us, on the way
which leads through our clear consciousness. Hence, it is the striving of the
theosophical movement to hear not to those who reveal truth from the unconsciousness
or subconsciousness, but to those who tell truth from full waking consciousness.
Somebody who stands in the theosophical movement and has direct knowledge of
truth has investigated truth in no other way as maintaining the full waking
consciousness. He is not allowed to eliminate his consciousness for a moment.
Higher development of the consciousness, full, clear beholding, as the adepts
have it, must be his striving. If we have reached this goal, then we fulfil
our human determination.

Why should we believe the medium
being in trance more than somebody who speaks from his clear waking consciousness?
Trust is necessary here and there. However, it is more comfortable to investigate
truth eliminating the consciousness, but the research method maintaining the
clear consciousness is more humane. Hence, the theosophists have preferred the
latter way as the natural one, so that any work out of the unconsciousness or
subconsciousness is not what the theosophical movement would have wished. The
theosophical movement tries to get to the spiritual world out of the full, clear
consciousness, and it realises that the human being is a spiritual being which
is more or less independent of his body, depending on his level of development.
Hence, theosophy turns to the incarnated human beings above all, to such human
beings who, living in the body, can attain forces of spiritual beholding and
become independent of their physical bodies temporarily, with full, clear consciousness.
The human being independent of the body has the possibility to obtain experiences
in the spiritual world, not because he returns to the times in which the bright
waking consciousness was not yet developed, but because he ascends to times
and periods of evolution in which the consciousness will be higher than the
average consciousness of the present human beings.

The medium is a reminiscent sign
of past times of evolution. In former times all human beings were media and
had an astral perception, once they all could perceive the spiritual world.
However, from this astral consciousness our consciousness, our bright, clear
waking consciousness has developed gradually. With the rise to the spiritual
worlds which all human beings will have to carry out, they will go — if
I may say so — through this astral world again, become clairvoyant again.
However, this is only a transitory state like any development state can be considered
as a transitory state. Our earthly career is a lesson which we must work through
which we have to learn. Therefore, we should also not become unworldly, not
hostile to the earthly matters, but completely live in the earthly and should
recognise the same forces, the same beings in the earthly world which we perceive
in the super-sensible world, because these work on our earthly world and on the
human souls, and gain influence on the organisation of the earthly life that
way.

The bee allegory of the mystery
priests of the ancient Greece wanted to express this. The bee allegory is therefore
not without significance for us, because the human soul was compared with the
bees. As well as the bees are sent out from the beehive to the flowers to collect
honey, the human soul is sent out from higher regions to collect experiences
in the earthly world. The realm of flowers is assigned to the bees, the earthly
world to the human beings. It would not at all correspond to their determinations
if bees and human beings visited other fields of research, were active in regions
which do not contain the material to be collected or to an unsuitable degree.
Therefore, the theosophical movement has made this allegory the allegory of
its work which consists, briefly expressed, in the striving for the higher development
of knowledge and of the clear consciousness to an encompassing one, so that
it can also take part in the life in spiritual worlds. So the Theosophical Society
strives for a higher development of the human beings. If it succeeds in doing
so, those interests become active in the human nature and develop the human
being further. Curiosity should not drive us to get to know anything of the
spiritual world. What we learn has to give us the strength, the capacity to
arrive at the goal which is set to us by the cosmic powers.

The spiritistic movement causes
the consciousness in its followers that there is a spiritual world. In this
endeavour theosophy and spiritism agree. But the method to arrive at this goal,
as already explained, is different. The reasons why the Theosophical Society
does not favour the research method of spiritism can be given with a few words:
it is a big danger in the present stage of our cosmic development to eliminate
the human consciousness. According to the whole course of the cosmic development
the human being must work with this consciousness on the earth. If he eliminates
it, he is exposed will-lessly, unconsciously to the spiritual powers.

An example should make this clear
to you. It is a great difference whether you go into a den of criminals with
clear consciousness and bright mind and know a lot about it, or whether you
go into it without this clear knowledge. It is not only in the extreme case
of the dive, it is everywhere in the world that way. We must grasp the things
which move up to us with clear consciousness and mind. We must not become will-less
tools, also not of the spiritual powers, because these could do everything imaginable
with us. It is just that which contributed to inhibit the culture, the development
of media to such a high degree. The insight that the human being should contact
the spiritual beings only maintaining his full, free self-determination is accepted
more and more by the leading spiritists, and it may be only a question of time
that the other method of spiritual research, cultivated by the theosophists,
is also adopted by the spiritists.

The theosophist and the spiritist
strive for clairvoyance. Both are also tools, the theosophical student and the
spiritistic medium; but only the spiritistic medium is will-less. Somebody who
knows the dangers can speak about the immense powers facing him in that world;
powers which have a destroying, pressing down effect on us; powers which have
a beneficial influence on one side, on the other side a damaging effect. That
was profitable to the human being when he still lived in his subconsciousness;
today this is injurious to him. If we leave ourselves will-lessly to the powers
which formed us once, then we are their tools for better or for worse. This
is why we should never let cloud our consciousness. This has enabled us with
our researches to recognise big truth, while the spiritistic researcher must
fish more or less in troubled waters. We have recognised what leads to the goals;
it has revealed what hinders us. Above all we must learn to find the way in
the spiritual world. We must possess that knowledge which makes this possible
which is the precondition of knowledge in the spiritual world. Who wants to
become a competent mechanic must study mathematics. Who wants to be at home
in the spiritual world and not to move staggering and will-lessly in it must
have penetrated the theosophical profundities. What the theosophists have recognised
in 1875 will bring more and more spiritists gradually to their side. Both currents
do not need to combat each other even if the research method is radically different
as I have pointed out; they should balance out. What the followers of the one
current have to offer, they may bring this; what the followers of the other
current have to bring, they may lay down this on the altar of humankind for
the welfare of the whole. Humankind is really supported by both movements this
way, while fight between both directions could lead only to lose track of the
great goal. Not fight, but unity between both movements is necessary which should
lead to the common goal: to lift humankind out of the materialistic current
of the present.

Imparting of the knowledge of the
spiritual world is necessary for that. Imparting of the knowledge of eternity
and the true nature of the soul, as well as the possibility to look up again
to the big spiritual powers of nature leading and showing us the paths. How
few have so much self-knowledge that they understand the origin and the determination
of the human being, the home of the soul, that they can find what gives sense
and significance to life! To receive that, the human being must have got to
the conviction which Johann Gottlieb Fichte expressed when
he spoke of that spiritual world which opens our eyes for the eternal: “Not
only, after I have been torn away from the connection of the earthly world,
I will receive the entry into the supernatural world; I am and live now in it,
truer than in the earthly one; it is my only steady point of view now, and the
eternal life, which I obtained long ago, is the only reason, why I may still
continue the earthly one. What they call heaven does not lie beyond the grave;
it is spread already here around our nature, and its light rises in every pure
heart.”

Notes:

The translator uses the terms spiritism, spiritist etc.
instead of the terms spiritualism, spiritualist etc. which are more common
in English-speaking countries. Steiner uses the latter terms for the opposite
of materialism, materialist etc. as it became usual since Allan Kardec (1804–1861)
had differentiated these terms.